Wages and labour relations in the Middle Ages: it's not (all) about the money

For long periods of history, a significant proportion of the labour force has received all or part of their wages in non-monetary in-kind payments. Despite its historical ubiquity, this form of labour remuneration remains poorly understood. This paper presents a framework which allows for the valuation and interpretation of in-kind wages. We apply our method to a new dataset of agricultural wages for labourers in medieval England (1270-1440), most of whom received a composite wage for which in-kind payment was the largest share. Assessing the market value of the wages these workers received, we find an increase in the relative importance of cash payments in the latter decades of the 14th century. We show that this was connected to a fundamental shift in labour relations, providing new empirical insights into the so-called ‘golden age of labour’ that followed the Black Death

Research in Translation Between Paralysis and Pretence

This essay adopts a highly but not entirely relativistic position towards the study of transla- tion. On the basis of a long list of research questions that may legitimately be asked about two fragments from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (one original, the other a translation) the essay attempts to recapture a fuller sense of the endless complexity of reality and of how provi- sional and partial human knowledge of reality is doomed to remain. This implies a criti- cism of the monological and self-assertive attitudes which are often displayed by researchers hoping to conquer the field. Combining elementary insights from epistemology with an awareness of research as a sociological, economic, institutional and psychologically moti- vated reality, the essay rejects rigid thinking while accepting the necessity of theories and paradigms, and ends up recommending old-fashioned homely ideals such as common sense and dialogue.Este artículo muestra una postura, aunque no totalmente, sí bastante relativista con respec- to al estudio de la traducción. Partiendo de una larga lista de preguntas que podrían plan- tearse a dos fragmentos del Hamlet de Shakespeare (un original y una traducción), el artícu- lo intenta captar un sentido más amplio de la infinita complejidad de la realidad y de cómo el conocimiento que el hombre tiene de ella está destinado a ser siempre parcial y provisio- nal. Esto conlleva una crítica a actitudes monológicas y autocomplacientes que a menudo los investigadores adoptan con el objetivo de dominar un campo de estudio. Combinando visones básicas desde la epistemología con el reconocimiento de que la investigación es una realidad motivada sociológica, económica, institucional y psicológicamente, este trabajo muestra un rechazo por los juicios e ideas rígidos y reconoce la necesidad de las teorías y de los paradigmas, para terminar recomendando principios tradicionales y cotidianos como el diálogo y el sentido común

The effect of habitual foot strike pattern on the Gastrocnemius medialis muscle-tendon interaction and muscle force production during running

The interaction between Gastrocnemius medialis (GM) muscle and Achilles tendon, i.e. muscle-tendon unit (MTU) interaction, plays an important role in minimizing the metabolic cost of running. Foot strike pattern (FSP) has been suggested to alter MTU interaction and subsequently the metabolic cost of running. However, metabolic data from experimental studies on FSP is inconsistent and a comparison of MTU interaction between FSP is still lacking. We therefore investigated the effect of habitual rearfoot and mid-/forefoot striking on MTU interaction, ankle joint work and plantar flexor muscle force production while running at 10 and 14 km/h. GM muscle fascicles of 9 rearfoot and 10 mid-/forefoot strikers were tracked using dynamic ultrasonography during treadmill running. We collected kinetic and kinematic data, and used musculoskeletal models to determine joint angles and calculate MTU lengths. In addition, we used dynamic optimization to assess plantar flexor muscle forces. During ground contact, GM fascicle shortening (p = 0.02) and average contraction velocity (p = 0.01) were 40 to 45% greater in rearfoot strikers than mid-/forefoot strikers. Differences in contraction velocity were especially prominent during early ground contact. Moreover, GM (p = 0.02) muscle force was greater during early ground contact in mid-/forefoot strikers than rearfoot strikers. Interestingly, we did not find differences in stretch or recoil of the series elastic element between FSP. Our results suggest that, for the GM, the reduced muscle energy cost associated with lower fascicle contraction velocity in mid-/forefoot strikers may be counteracted by greater muscle forces during early ground contact